"That
Spielberg
refuses to go
after bigger game keeps the film a banal
exercise in sentimentality."

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Tom Hanks plays Viktor Navorski, an Eastern European
from a
fictional
country called Krakozhia, who visits NYC carrying a
Planters Peanuts
tin
filled with autographs of jazz greats his deceased dad
collected. But
when
a violent coup takes place in his homeland just as his
plane lands,
Viktor
becomes stateless and trapped at Kennedy International
Airport in
Steven
Spielberg's "The Terminal." The officious immigration
security chief
Frank
Dixon (Stanley Tucci) follows the letter of the law
and refuses to
allow
him to leave the international terminal lounge until
the war in
Viktor's
country is settled and there's a legitimate country
for him to return
to.

It's a Capra-esque-like feel-good comedy, but
without an
edge and
its narrative is so slight that only a skilled
filmmaker like Spielberg
could make such a flimsy film come out at least
bearable. The film is
based
on a concept by Andrew Niccol and further explored by
Sacha Gervasi,
while
Jeff Nathanson (writer for Catch Me If You Can) came
on board later to
help with the screenplay. The Terminal draws its
inspiration from the
true
story of Iranian refugee Merhan Nasseri, who has been
living in Paris'
Charles De Gaulle airport since 1988 due to a series
of political
snafus
(though now able to leave, the dissident refuses to
budge).

Hanks looks as if he's doing an impersonation of
Robin
Williams in
Moscow on the Hudson, as he dresses frumpy, walks with
a slouch, acts
childlike
and friendly without any hostility, and babbles in an
invented Slavic
language.
Hanks being trapped in a crowded terminal with his
visa invalidated
learns
how to survive in a shopping area, which is almost
like the Robinson
Crusoe-like
Hanks surviving in Cast Away when stuck on a desert
island.

The film's biggest laugh comes as a result of Hanks'
broken
English,
as he tells a lovesick airport worker "he cheats"
which sounds like
"eat
shit." There was surprisingly little else that was
amusing (a lot of
pratfalls
on a slippery floor that are imitative of Jacques
Tati-like routines,
unfortunately
they fell short of being funny), but a lot of
unbelievable sappy
workplace
sitcom stuff as Hanks bonds with a colorful
multi-ethnic group of
workers—with
Kumar Pallana as the paranoid Indian janitor, Diego
Luna as the
lovesick
Latino food-services worker, and Chi McBride the
good-natured
African-American
baggage handler. There's also a platonic romantic
encounter with
neurotic
39-year-old airline stewardess Amelia Warren
(Catherine Zeta-Jones),
stuck
in a dead-end relationship with a married man, that
had no energy and
seemed
forced--a criticism which can actually be said about
the entire film.

By the time Viktor's situation is resolved after his
nine-month forced
stay, everything felt phony from the mysterious reason
for Viktor's
visit,
to his relationships with America's melting pot
workforce, to the
good-natured
spin put on his detention as he becomes a hero to the
little people;
and,
finally, the premise of Viktor turning an airport into
a home seemed
forced
as a comedy situation. Spielberg aimed all his energy
in telling about
the immigrant experience--that with a good work ethic
and right
attitude
an immigrant could make it in this country despite the
initial language
and culture barriers. I had the uneasy feeling that
anything goes here
to keep things lightweight and not political, though
the situation
certainly
left openings to say something darker and bigger about
post-9/11
airport
fears and Homeland Security. That Spielberg refuses to
go after bigger
game keeps the film a banal exercise in sentimentality
without a point
of return.